Thursday, March 29, 2012

The same week that the Trayvon Martin story finally broke into the national consciousness also saw NYPD officers dislocating protesters' thumbs and smashing heads into windows in yet another scouring of Occupy groups. Automatic contempt for certain people and styles of dress, as well as assumptions of their unlawful conduct is neither restricted to the south nor any race. But that isn't why what happened to Martin is so familiar. That familiarity has its roots in Florida's Stand Your Ground laws as well as an incident that happened years ago in Texas.